The demand for clean and healthy drinking water is increasing dramatically. The rapid growth in population, and standards of living, across the globe are fueling an incredible demand for devices and methods that enable drinking water, and the containers which hold and dispense drinking water, to be efficiently and safely sterilized. There are certain devices that have been developed which employ the use of ozone gas (O3) to sterilize such dispensers (and the water contained therein), such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,153,074 to G. Yui (which is incorporated herein by reference).
However, there are certain prior art devices that suffer from one or more drawbacks. For example, many of the currently-available devices are unable to prevent the growth of bacteria that colonize in the areas of above the water levels within both a cold tank of the dispenser and the water bottle itself (i.e., many of the currently-available devices are only able to sterilize the actual water, but not other internal parts of both the cold tank and water bottle). Moreover, such prior art devices are often unable to prevent biofilm formation on the various surfaces within the cold tank and water bottle (such biofilms can further exacerbate the problems caused by bacterial growth, by providing protection to the contaminating bacteria).
The internal areas of a water dispenser are often heavily prone to bacterial colonization (particularly when the dispensers include a hot tank for preparing and storing hot water). Indeed, the often warm and humid environment that exists on the interior surfaces of such water dispensers is ideal for bacterial growth. Currently-available water dispensers are often unable to effectively maintain such areas in a sterile condition. In addition, it has been found that some currently-available sterilization methods leave unsafe levels of residual ozone in the drinking water, which can impart an undesirable taste to the drinking water (and, furthermore, can be hazardous to a person's health).
As the following will demonstrate, many of the foregoing problems with currently-available sterilization devices and methods for water dispensers are addressed by the present invention.